Music
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Reality Strikes
Denver Considers Demoliahing their Symphony's Concert Hall
By: - Jul 28th, 2014All around the country symphony orchestras are struggling. Denver can only half fill Boettcher Hall, the first in the round venue to be built. The city argues that an outdoor ampitheatre would cost less than renovating Boettcher and attract its growing population of Hispanics and young people. Do symphony's need a home? Would they be better off as itinerants, performing in spaces suitable to programming? Every symphony board member and executive has to ask these questions.
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The Bartered Bride Boston Midsummer Opera
Rare Performance of Czech Opera
By: - Jul 27th, 2014A smart production featuring talented young singers proves a delight for art-starved local summer audiences. Spoiler alert: the young woman who would be bartered ends up with the man she loves.
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The Joshua Bell Fan Club
Packed the House at Tanglewood
By: - Jul 24th, 2014Amazingly Joshua Bell has performed at Tanglewood for 26 consecutive seasons. The charisma for Lenox audiences compares to the annual appearances of James Taylor. There are many reasons for his immense popularity all based on the fluid music evoked from his violin. On this occasion he collaborated with new BSO music director the young and equally exciting Andris Nelsons. It made for a thrilling combination.
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Composer Profile: Spotlight on Gustav Mahler
Performed at Tanglewood on July 26
By: - Jul 19th, 2014This is not a program note, but my “take†on Mahler’s music in toto and what I feel it represents extramusically – the backstory behind the composer’s aesthetic, if you will. The Symphony No. 2 is, to my way of thinking, the most iconic of all Mahler’s works, since everything he subsequently composed stems from this landmark hybrid of symphony, solo song and choral work.
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Jason Alexander at Tanglewood Yada Yada Yada
No more George Costanza
By: - Jul 18th, 2014Jason Alexander mesmerized the packed house at Tanglewood. His performance consisted of humor, dance and song. He had the crowd on their feet, watching his every move.
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Johnny Winter at 70
White Hot Blues
By: - Jul 17th, 2014Signed to a record breaking advance of $600,000 Columbia released the debut album" Johnny Winter" in 1969. Born an albino he was hyped as the whitest blues player. He produced several Grammy winners for Muddy Waters and a few for his own blues albums but his career faltered when he refused to record guitar rock albums. He ended out of the running 63rd on Rolling Stone's list of 100 greatest guitarists.
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Conductors; The Pharoahs of Music
Changing of the Guard for Orchestras
By: - Jul 14th, 2014James Levine’s travails because of persistent illnesses several years ago, became a liability for the Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony, despite his great musical gifts. By contrast, the Los Angeles Philharmonic had good fortune in nabbing the talented young superstar Gustavo Dudamel in 2008. Levine, now confined to a wheelchair, has begun the long road back to conducting at the Met, but it’s unlikely, at 72, that he’ll regain his former energy and commanding presence in opera and symphony concerts.
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Fireworks with Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood
Present and Future Orchestras Shine on Stage
By: - Jul 13th, 2014Fireworks started at Tanglewood immediately after the intermission of the gala performance welcoming music director designate Andris Nelsons. In the second half of the program, the Boston Symphony performed with the conductor and the match seemed perfect, in part because the Rachmaninoff and Ravel suited the Maestro and his instrumentalists. On stage fireworks exploded. The Maestro left nothing on the podium as he exited to fireworks falling out of the night Berkshire sky.
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Youthful Andris Nelsons Debuts at Tanglewood
A Varied Antonín Dvo?ák Program Entranced on a Summer Night
By: - Jul 12th, 2014Speaking with Nelsons after the Saturday morning rehearsal, he seemed eager to dig in to making music live in Lenox and Boston as he takes on the task of making classic symphonic music relevant to today’s audience. This is particularly difficult in the US where children are not as exposed to the classical form as they are in Europe.
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Sondheim's A Little Night Music at Colonial
Enchanting Production from Berkshire Theatre Group
By: - Jul 09th, 2014Not surprisingly the richly dark and complez A Little Night Music by the always challenging and insightful Stephen Sondheim is performed by opera companies. Berkshire Theatre Group is commended for having mounted a production with an amazing cast and superb orchestra. This otherwise fabulous musical, however, has been undermined by cutting corners on a second rate set. That hardly matters, however, with chills up the spine when Maureen O'Flynn sings the riveting and iconic "Send in the Clowns."
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The Cosmology of Classical Concerts
Music Light Years Beyond the Comfort Zone
By: - Jul 07th, 2014You can be an avid concertgoer and never once hear a string quartet or a symphony by such as Arnold Bax, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Vincent Persichetti, Vittorio Rieti, Peter Mennin or Ernst Toch; the piano sonatas of Dussek, Clementi or Griffes; the piano concertos of Hummel, Field, Tippett, Malipiero, Palmgren, Busoni or Lutoslawski.
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Renée Fleming Launches BSO’s Tanglewood Season
Stars in Williamstown Play Opening July 16
By: - Jul 06th, 2014It’s been an inclement week in the Berkshires but last night was just glorious for the launch of the BSO’s Tanglewood season featuring the ever magnificent soprano “The People’s Diva†Renée Fleming. From July 16 through 26 she will make her dramatic debut at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Living On Love. As she told us last night she is enjoying her extended time in the Berkshires. But it's a working holiday.
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Judy Collins for the 4th of July
At the Green Music Center, California
By: - Jul 05th, 2014If you closed your eyes for the drive up to the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park, California, and then opened them when you arrived at Weill Hall, you might think you were at Tanglewood. This hall is modeled after Ozawa Hall in Lenox. Judy Collins, regal and still going strong at 75, packed the Sonoma Music Center.
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Chicago' s Response to Sustaining Lyric Opera
Anthony Freud Reports a Splendid Season
By: - Jul 01st, 2014News from the Lyric Opera of Chicago stands out in stark contrast to the unfolding drama at the Metropolitan Opera. The Lyric is in black for the 2013/14 season with ticket sales increasing by 8%. Some 25% of tickets were sold to first-time opera buyers. What does it take to keep opera a live? Surely Anthony Freud is one answer. Snother is lighter programming like My Fair Lady for which 71,074 tikets were sold. It is a record for the company.
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Beck Rocks Mass MoCA
Opening Set by Sean Lennon
By: - Jun 25th, 2014On a sultry summer evening Beck charmed some 5,000 fans crammed into Joe Thompson Field on the campus of Mass MoCA. While Wilco's Solid Sound weekend festival is taking a break this season, on a Tuesday night in June, Beck put up Wilco numbers. It strongly indicates that MoCA is in the rock concert business as a viable alternative to Tanglewood with far more imaginative programming.
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The Rise and Fall of WBCN
Carter Alan’s Book on Radio Free Boston
By: - Jun 17th, 2014Between 1968 and its demise in 2009 Boston's rock station WBCN was the epicenter of an alternative lifestyle. Its DJ's interviewed and broadcast live concerts and studio sessions with virtually every major band of the era. It was a strong advocate of local band breaking many including J Geils, The Cars, Aerosmith, Boston and British stars from Bowie and The Who to Ireland's U2. Carter Alan's superbly researched book covers it all from A to Z.
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Odyssey Opera Inaugurates June Opera Festival
Three Italian Rarities, Including Verdi's First Comdy
By: - Jun 16th, 2014Odyssey Opera is devoted to taking its audience on a journey "through the lesser known reaches of the opera world." On paper, it was an enticing idea. I could hardly wait. And in execution, it turned out to be a promising start of what one hopes is a long-lived local company.
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ICE, Dan Dehaan in Chicago
Claire Chase's Ensemble Ends Brilliant Season
By: - Jun 16th, 2014This was the International Contemporary Ensemble’s final performance of the season in which they have performed hundreds of new works in countries around the world. Founder Claire Chase’s ability to attract musical talent and to commission cutting edge works in her ICELab, is the musical adventure of a lifetime.
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Rene Fleming at Tanglewood
Opens BSO Bershire Season on July 5
By: - Jun 09th, 2014The Boston Symphony Orchestra begins its 2014 Tanglewood season on Saturday, July 5, at 8:30 p.m. in the Shed, with an all-American Opening Night at Tanglewood program featuring superstar soprano Renée Fleming.
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The Arvo Part Project at Carnegie Hall
Presented by St. Vladimir's Seminary
By: - Jun 06th, 2014A recent Carnegie Hall concert presented works by the composer Arvo Part for the first time since 1984. The rare event resulted in a sold out performance featuring his tintinnabuli works. The exotic and evocative museum was preformed by Tallin chamber orchestra and the Estonian philharmonic chamber choir led by Tonu Kaljuste.
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Dmitri Hvorostovsky Sings Russian Songs
Russian Baritone Electrifies Jordan Hall Audience
By: - Jun 02nd, 2014Hvorostovsky plumbs every shade of melancholy in his sets of songs by Tchaikovsky, Medtner and Rachmaninoff. There is no classical song literature more soulful than the Russian.
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Memorial Day with Chicago Symphony
Jaap van Zweden Unearths Hidden Truths
By: - May 25th, 2014It is the human terms of war we remember on Memorial Day. No one has portrayed them more movingly in music than Dmitri Shostakovich. Born in Leningrad, and living there when the Germans began their almost 900 day seige in 1939, Shostakovich remained in his home and began to compose his Leningrad Symphony.
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Serenata Italiana
Encore Performances by Hubbard Hall Opera Theater
By: - May 24th, 2014HHOT takes a concert featuring music from powerful and familiar arias by Verdi and Leoncavallo, to popular songs by Tosti, Donaudy to Bennngton and Saratoga.
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I Puritani at Boston Lyric Opera
Bel Canto Masterpiece Features Two Mad Scenes.
By: - May 05th, 2014BLO production got most of it right, although director Crystal Manich, fooled with the ending. But singing didn't soar, leaving the audience with dry eyes at the end of evening.
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Deborah Voigt Sings at Symphony Hall
Program Highlights Her Vocal Strengths
By: - May 02nd, 2014Deborah Voigt has spoken frankly about cutting back on her opera performances. A set of Strauss songs showed how great she could be in that repertoire. A set of American art songs suggest her new direction.
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